I grew up with a grandmother who always used shall and will correctly, and expected me to do the same.  I never quite lived up to her expectations, however, and I now live in a time when very few people could live up to them either. 

Canes are cropping up in my age group like crab grass in a green lawn. And I have discovered there are as many ways to use a cane as there are people using them. I always think first of my vibrant friend who had to use a cane a result of an injury she sustained while serving in the Red Cross in World War II.

Over the years I have always wondered why older women needed to draw on their eyebrows, with one remembered great aunt in particular getting the drawn-on masterpieces nowhere near where her original eyebrows had once resided.  Now it has all become clear to me in one of the continuing surprises of old age.  This is a spoiler alert for those under sixty, so read on at your peril. 

By and large customs stand very high in everyone’s life experience. For instance, ‘This is where we always place the Christmas tree; or we never fail to have ham at Easter; or we buy nothing but Ford cars; or our children all play softball.’

Recently, while lunching with a friend who is the same age as I am, we discussed growing older. He commented that it felt like turning pages in a book.

This week I attended a band concert in which my grandson was playing. It was a district level band for which the players had competed for a spot. The guest conductor was a distinguished college professor of music. What was interesting about the evening, in addition to the excellent performance, were the comments made by the conductor before each piece.

The other day while out, I happened to end up walking behind a young woman in a pair of jeans that were more holes than pants. In my younger years the assumption would have been that this was a homeless person, down on her luck whose only attire involved these ripped and torn items of clothing. But this was not the case.

     I read an article recently in which the poet W. H. Auden was paraphrased as saying that paying attention was a form of love.  This struck me as being a really important concept for those of us who now have a younger generation of family members in our midst. 

In 2022 I am introducing my memoir entitled The Smallest Tree in the Forest. As is often the case, a memoir may not be so much about the person who wrote it, as it is about those people who were important to the writer. This memoir seems appropriate for Dispatches from the Front as it really is a celebration of my grandparents.

Years ago, under circumstances I do not remember, I was walking down a hall to meet an older gentleman who was approaching me slowly on a walker.  With a grin on his face he said to me, “In my mind I am running.” 

No matter what one’s age may be I hope, particularly for myself, that there are new things to learn.

I was a history major in college, and I have been reading it ever since.  I find it absolutely fascinating and am distressed when my grandchildren, to a person, declare it boring.  Their complaint is that it is all about dates.  Well maybe so.  After all it might be important to know that World War II did not take place in 1965.

I grew up in the fifties where a family was a very closely defined unit. The world went by like Noah’s Ark, with all parents marching through it two by two. Divorce was a word uttered as one would a deep, dark secret, and one prominent politician was considered to be unelectable because he was (the voice drops) divorced.

This year after the ravages of the covid 19 pandemic, there will be many families with an empty chair at the table that bears the turkey and all that goes with it.

When I was growing up in the fifties, the weight of society was ever present. Every adult that swam into my orbit felt a responsibility and the freedom to correct and guide me.

I took typing my sophomore year in high school. It was called just that --- typing--- and the class room was filled with only females. After all we were the ones who were going to become secretaries, and the males absent from that room were the ones who were going to direct our flying fingers.

If you had asked me yesterday, I would have told you that the girdle was a thing of the past, a torturous remnant left over from my young adulthood. They were sold in lingerie departments and dress shops, and could be had in any color to match the rest of your undergarments, including your full length slip, another victim of female liberation.

I recently read an article in The New Yorker magazine about a venerable, but changing institution in Britain. The changes are disturbing long-held, treasured beliefs about establishments which in reality are not quite what they seemed.

We are never too old to reach back into our past and examine events, both good and bad, that have made us what we are today. In fact, this activity seems to take on greater importance the older we get.

I am not necessarily put off by the signs of aging that I see in myself. I do not mind the gray hair, or the more careful way I approach stairs. I do not mind having current cultural references sweep uncomprehendingly by me. I do not mind taking a moment to reach around in my mind for a name or an event that might have popped up with no trouble a few years ago. I do not mind that I am driven rather than being behind the wheel on occasion. I do not mind being called Grammy.